A mad rustling filled the forest. Creatures came rushing out of the shadows, headed straight for her. No. Not for her. The moon hit their forms, and she realized that these must be members of the Weaver Clan. Men and women with multiple arms and strange eyes. And all those arms were reaching for Z.
“No! No, do you hear me? You can’t touch him. You can’t have him!”
“Let him go, Mistress. Trust me. The
y won’t hurt him. Not yet.” The low whisper came from behind the tree. Dorothy didn’t want to listen to it. She wanted to freeze them. To call the wind and rip them apart. But how could she fight against a witch powerful enough to do this? What if she couldn’t change him back?
There were so many of them.
“He’ll be fine, Mistress. I’ve got a plan. Let them go.” It was a feminine voice, one she’d never heard before, but she trusted it instinctively.
Tears streamed down her face when she crawled away from the body and they swarmed around it, dragging the statue of her lover away.
“Why? Why is she doing this to him? To all of them?”
Two warm arms covered in fur wrapped around her, cloaking her in a blanket. “A woman does crazy things when her heart is broken. And when you’re a witch as powerful as Glinda? Crazy means something a hell of a lot more than keying your ex’s car.”
Dorothy opened her eyes, surprised by the Earth reference. It was a female Felix, covered in beautiful orange fur. She was gorgeous. And she looked strangely familiar. “Do I know you?”
The feline laughed, nodding as she hugged Dorothy close. “You know me well enough. But more importantly, I know Glinda. And I’m going to help you, your sexy wizard and that stubborn old witch too. Maybe even myself in the bargain.”
She saw the continued confusion in Dorothy’s eyes and her smile grew. “It’s me, Mistress. Suki. Now let’s go wake the king and fill him in on our plan.”
“Su-Suki? My Suki?” Her cat was here? “We have a plan?”
“We do.” Her cat nodded emphatically. “Now come on, try and keep up. We have a world to save and, almost as important, I’m starving. I haven’t had a good meal since you left me with old Mrs. Goldstein. That woman is notoriously stingy with her sardines.”
***
At the king’s tent, Suki had a stunning story to tell.
“Once upon a time, more years than I’ll ever admit to, I was Glinda’s maid. A gift from the Felix Clan for all her good works. I was trained to serve her in all things, but it didn’t take long for the two of us to grow as close as sisters. So close that I was the only person she told when she fell in love with her wizard.”
Z had figured it out and she’d doubted him, Dorothy thought morosely. She was disappointed in her aunt. Or she would be if she didn’t want to wring her neck for stealing Z away from her.
Suki munched on a plate full of what looked to be oysters as she enthralled her small audience. “For a while she was the happiest I’d ever seen her. I suppose when you’ve been responsible for saving and helping to establish an entire world, you don’t have a lot of time for fun and romance.”
“I can imagine,” the king murmured, listening intently.
“Anyhoo, when the wizard betrayed her and broke her heart, she was totally shattered. She had no real family to turn to. Two of her three sisters had been killed during the Great War, and everyone in Oz only wanted her for what she could do for them. So she went to stay with her last remaining relatives. A sister who’d fallen in love with a man from Earth and a half brother who hadn’t inherited any powers worth mentioning. I went with her for moral support, thinking it would only be temporary.”
Dorothy stood, pacing behind the king and Kansas. She didn’t want to feel any sympathy for her aunt. She was too upset, imagining what Z might be going through. What he looked like the last time she’d seen him. But it snuck in anyway. How lonely must Glin have been? How devastated to leave this behind and hide her power?
“So you’ve been away from home all these years? Disguised as a house cat?”
Suki nodded and the king sent her a look of admiration that had her preening. “That’s quite a sacrifice.”
“I wasn’t a cat the entire time. For a while she helped me look like everyone else. I was one sexy human female, let me tell you. And I started to love it. There’s something about Earth. It’s hard to describe, but it grows on you. It wasn’t until Dorothy was born that Glinda asked me to be a full-time guardian.”
She met Dorothy’s gaze. “She always said there was something different about you. Something special that had skipped a generation. She worried about you all the time. And I had already had two lifetimes’ worth of the human experience, so I thought it might be nice to be pampered for a while. And you, Mistress, spoiled me rotten. Thank you for that, by the way.”
“No problem.” Dorothy held her aching head. “Suki, when are we going to get to this plan of yours? The one to save Z.”
“Oh that.” Suki popped a sardine into her mouth. “Mmm. Well, I was thinking that you and I get cleaned up, get a little shuteye and then head over to the palace to talk your aunt into releasing your magical mancakes.”
“That’s your plan?” Kansas shook his head. “You think she’ll stop looking for the spell of unmaking, stop threatening to kill all wizards and leave the palace quietly after one little chat?”
“She already has the spell.” The king was grim. “It dwells in the mind of every wizard in our world. Our only consolation is that she’ll never be able to break our Z. And if she kills him, the information would die with him.”